Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel claimed Red Bull Racing's 40th Formula 1 race win with an untroubled drive in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza today.
The German led away from pole position, and his only concern during the race was a flat-spotted front tyre that compromised his pace during the opening stint.
On Saturday Vettel and Webber locked out the front row of the grid for Red Bull, but their key title rivals all endured incident-packed qualifying sessions.
Fernando Alonso qualified fifth, one place behind Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa, after the team's attempt to get its drivers to give each other a slipstream around the super-fast circuit went awry. It prompted a barbed comment from the Spaniard over the car-to-pit radio.
Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Romain Grosjean all failed to make it through to the final tranche of qualifying, with the Brit blaming himself for his failure to properly hook up a decent lap.
The real star of qualifying was Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg, who set a superb time to line up third on the grid, although the German wasn't entirely sure where the pace had come from.
Changeable conditions prior to the start caused some head-scratching as the teams lined up on the grid. Hamilton and Raikkonen both gambled on starting on the harder compound tyre, whereas all of the top ten drivers had to start on the medium rubber they had used for their fast qualifying laps.
Massa and Alonso both made storming starts and seriously pressed Vettel and Webber into the first chicane. With his mirrors filled with scarlet Ferraris, Vettel locked-up his front-right brake and scarred the Pirelli tyre with a flat-spot, but still maintained the lead ahead of Massa, Webber and Alonso.
The tight confines of Monza's myriad chicanes caused the usual argy-bargy in the pack. Raikkonen chose to use the rear of Sergio Perez's McLaren as a brake into the first chicane, punting the Mexican driver across the run-off area and inflicting front-wing damage on his own Lotus, which he brought into the pits at the end of lap one.
Paul di Resta out braked himself into the second chicane and struck Grosjean's Lotus, wiping the front-left wheel and suspension off his Force India and retiring on the spot.
On lap three Alonso bravely sliced past Webber for third position, inadvertently clipping the front wing of the Red Bull with his rear tyre as he did so but inflicting no serious damage.
Half a dozen laps later, the Spaniard slipped past his dutiful team-mate for second position and set off in pursuit of Vettel, who was steadily inching clear at the head of the field.
However, the Red Bull pit garage was concerned by a vibration caused by that flat-spotted front-right tyre and as the first tyre changes approached, Alonso began to take significant chunks out of Vettel's lead.
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All Hail !!!!!!!!
Yep, judging by this,Vettel is Champion now!,the rest are just the rest,no one has caught up technically with Redbull,and that's the sole reason why Alonso,Hamilton etc haven't a Snowball's chance unless Vettel's car has a breakdown,nothing new in one make dominating,McLaren Honda in the 80's won nearly every race,was that then down to the car or driver?,either way, the Redbull is dominating,maybe a change nxt yr...?